And then Sonny said the thing that knocked Brady off his course for the rest of his life.
“You talking about you or the car, Ace?”
It was the little bit of flirt in that voice, and Ace’s warmth when he returned it, that grabbed Brady Carnegie by the balls and shook him hard.
“Either one, now, Sonny. But we’re only letting him touch the car.”
“Fine,” Sonny huffed. “He can’t sit in the driver’s seat, though. Only you can do that.”
“Or Burton,” Ace said, no bullshit in his voice.
“Fine.”
Then Ace raised his voice, meant to carry. “Officer Carnegie, you can come round here, if you need to. Let me patch Sonny up, and he’ll be happy to show you the SHO.”
Brady rounded the corner and saw a neat, obviously newly repaired garage, with a sunken workstation under a cattle guard so a grown man could work on the underside. In this case, it was a newly painted blue Kia on the rack. In the corner, a smaller man—smaller than Ace anyway—sat on a stool and waited patiently for Ace to wipe a divot on his forehead with some antiseptic, before putting a butterfly bandage on it.
Brady studied him curiously, figuring he was in his early twenties—Ace was maybe four, five years older—and what Brady’s mother would call “puny.” He was slender, with wiry limbs that spoke of lots of hard work and good foodnow, but of lots of malnutrition and some bad times as a kid. He had blond hair, slicked back from his head like he wore a hat like Ace’s, and as Brady walked in, he turned a stunning pair of gray eyes, set in a fierce triangle face, toward him.
Ah. Not conventionally handsome—but definitely appealing. And Ace, who could probably have had any man, gay or straight, in the lower half of the state, was gazing at him softly, like he didn’t care who saw them.
“This that guy?” Sonny asked, and while the question was rude, it wasn’t rudely asked—more like Sonny didn’t want to make a mistake.
“Yessir, he is.” Ace turned toward Brady, the gauze and such in his hand. “Give me a sec and I’ll shake on it and make it official. Brady’s doing us a solid, and I think he just wants to talk cars with a fan. Since it’s your baby, I figured you’d do the honors.”
Brady hadn’t felt this awkward since his mother had arranged a playdate for him in the sixth grade. Thesixth grade. If the other kid hadn’t loved Hot Wheels as much as Brady had, the whole thing would have spelled social disaster.
Sonny turned toward Ace and said, “I can move now?”
“Yeah, Sonny, you can move.”
Sonny gave him a blinding grin and then turned toward Brady, hand extended. “Nice to meet you, Officer Carnegie. It was real nice of you to give us a car. Wanna see my baby?”
Brady extended his hand and they had a hard good ol’ boy handshake. “I’dloveto.”
Sonny didn’t skimp on the tour. In ten minutes he’d cracked the hood and was in full cry about how he’d managed to adda zillion miles an hour to the engine by reinforcing the engine block so he could add NOS to the fuel mix. Brady didn’t bat an eyelash at this, although there wasnostreet legal reason to add nitrous oxide to your fuel mixture, because God, this car was beautiful. It had been in one accident before Ace bought it, according to Sonny, and then it had been reborn.
So it was that Brady was bent over thevee-hi-cul—and God, it really was as sexy as Ace made it sound—when a giant powder-blue Cadillac pulled around the garage. Instead of parking on the hardpan, with two Audis, a minivan, and the totaled SUV, the Caddy pulled around to the hardpan in front of the little house to the side of the garage.
Brady looked up in time to see three people get out—anenormously tallbald man with a goatee, who was zipping the top half of coveralls like Ace and Sonny wore, over biceps as big as Brady’shead; a skinny twenty-something youth with curly dark hair and dreamy eyes; and a tall, elegant man in his thirties with dark blond hair, well-cut and slightly gray at the temples, tan slacks and green sweater set that wasrightout of a men’s fashion catalog for casual wear; and the sharpest, iciest pair of blue eyes that had ever cut Brady to the depths of his soul.
The big bald guy and the kid sauntered toward the garage like they were comfortable there. The kid wore a hooded gray San Diego State sweatshirt, frayed jeans, and tennis shoes, and he wandered over by Sonny and took a look inside the SHO.
“Whatcha doin’, Sonny?” he asked, a note of coyness in his voice. “You, uh, working on the SHO?”
Sonny shot the kid an indulgent look, like you’d give a younger brother.
“No, Ernie, I’m not working on the SHO. I’m giving this cop a tour, ’cause he’s giving us a Subaru carcass. Ace said I could make it rise from the dead, like a zombie car, and I’m gonnamake that shit sexy like a vampire. It’s a solid engine. She might even fly.”
Ernie grinned at him. “So if you’re starting a new project car….”
Sonny grinned back. “Yeah, your Kia’s all done. I was giving it a last once-over when this cop fella arrived. You want me to drive it off the rack for you?”
Ernie gave a happy little wriggle. “When you got time,” he said, obviously extremely tickled.
“Well, you’ve been patient,” Sonny admitted. He glanced up at Brady with apology in his eyes. “I don’t want to cut this short,” he said, “’cause you ask good questions and you’re not entirely stupid. If you come back around six, we can talk cars some more.” He said it like a kid remembering his manners, and Brady was unexpectedly charmed.
“I’ll try,” he said. “I’m on the clock now, but if I can get away by then, I’d love to come ogle her some more. I haven’t even gotten to the four on the floor or the suicide webbing lock.”
